Promises continuous delivery of democratic dividends
Nigeria’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) genius, National Pension Reforms content creator and intellectual property initiator, Senator Ibrahim Saminu-Turaki, can best be described as super genius.He will go down in Nigeria’s history as the exceptionally brilliant Actuarial Scientist and politician, who pioneered the concept of the current National Pension Reforms Scheme that Nigeria presently practices.
He is placed on official record as having first initiated the concept of Pension Reforms while he was the Executive Governor of Jigawa State in 1999 at the age of 36 years, making him the youngest state governor in the country under the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The pension reform scheme was later modelled and introduced by the Lagos State Government and finally copied by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
Sen Saminu-Turaki is also being credited with other landmark development reforms in the areas of ICT, electricity milestones, education reforms & security.
His former undergraduate peers, classmates and friends at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, as well as his political colleagues and business associates see him as a brilliant personality with unlimited capacity for uncommon creativity and value-addition. For other Nigerians who have come across this urbane man of all seasons, they would rather see him as a puzzle and a personality with multiple human resource endowments given his unique personality
Development Schemes
This highly refined gentleman is none other than Distinguished Senator Ibrahim Saminu Turaki, the pioneer Executive Governor of Jigawa State. Quiet, highly cultured, disciplined and focused in whatever he sets out to achieve, Turaki can best be described as a man far ahead of his peers and generation. Not until you enter into a dialogue with him or initiate a conversation will you discover the exceptionally skilled knowledge-base, competence, brilliance and uncommon wisdom that he is endowed with. His level of emotional, cognitive, investigative, social and native intelligence is beyond description.
Even former President Olusegun Obasanjo sees Turaki as an ICT genius.
Now in his late 50s, Turaki is known in Nigerian history as the political leadership figure, who pioneered the teaching and learning of ICT in both primary and secondary schools in Jigawa State while he was Governor between 1999 and 2007.
As a matter of fact, he is also credited with the use of e-Governance in the area of Development Administration in Jigawa State, linking all the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). The story was once told when he accompanied Obasanjo on a foreign trip and suddenly, he walked up to him, requesting to be given official permission to hold a brief meeting with members of his cabinet. At this point, President Obasanjo was said to have inquired from him if he would be travelling back to Nigeria in spite of the fact the foreign assignment was yet to be concluded. This bundle of talents humbly Obasanjo that he would be holding a virtual meeting, presently known as a zoom meeting with his cabinet members in Dutse, Kazaure, Gumel and Hadeija, respectively.
This was taking place when most Nigerians were yet to fully understand the complexities and dynamics of the global internet revolution.A highly hyperactive consummate personality with a knack for details, Saminu-Turaki is currently the People’s Democratic Party Senatorial candidate for the Jigawa North-West zone in February 25 National Assembly Elections, which holds on the same date with the Presidential polls.
The Galaxy Backbone Limited now 100 per cent owned by the Federal Government was the creation of Saminu-Turaki when he was the Governor of Jigawa State.
Having him as a second-time and returning Senator will no doubt, enrich the highly technically tasking routine weekly contributions on the floor of the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly.
His versatility, sharp instinct and reactions in matters of superior debates would be highly needed. That is the reason Kazaure Emirate voting electorates made up of 12 Local Government Councils are strongly behind his second-term bid.
Having a consummate personality like Saminu-Turaki is what the Nigerian people as well as his kinsmen and women from the North-West Geo-Political zone need.
When an electoral candidate is seeking the electoral investments of his constituents with a view to managing the gains of projective gains of electoral successes such as the February 25th National Assembly polls, issues and values usually raised by the electorates center on the visible and tangible contributions made or recorded by such a candidate to warrant a reinvestment on him.
To this end, Saminu-Turaki can justifiably lay claims to very credible democratic scorecard as his successful lines of achievement, necessitating an overwhelming electoral re-investment by his ever-reliable Kazaure kinsmen and women.
Former President Obasanjo influenced him to sell the ICT Company to the Federal Government on a sharing formulae of 40 and 60 per cent basis respectively. The company is now completely acquired by the Federal Government. This is the creativity of Saminu-Turaki, who is more like the Albert Einstein of Africa.
Ahead of the general elections, the fact that Saminu-Turaki’s deft political interests- aggregation is growing grassroots acceptance is not surprising. This reality can be attested to by the fact that since he left office as Governor, he has maintained a strong cordial relationship that he built with the grassroots, the middle-class, the elites as well as the complex political sub-populations across the state.
Surprisingly, he does not believe in the common-place social concept of a political leadership figure, having imagined, perceived or real enemies. His responses to the often negative social stimuli which encourage some political personalities, bearing grudges against certain political associates or followers, is one that baffles even a growing child in the remotest part of Hadeija, Dutse , Gumel or Kazaure Emirates of Jigawa State.
Any independent view you seek in Jigawa State, even from those who may not share the same political affiliation with him, they will tell you that the man has a good rapport with the electorates.
Jigawa State is gradually reawakening the same political consciousness that he introduced when he became governor of the State. His endorsement of young Alhaji Mustapha Sule Lamido Jr, whose father, Alhaji Sule Lamido, at some point in his political career, waged a ferocious political war against him attested to this fact.
His Jigawa kinsmen also see him as a man of simplicity and unparalleled generosity to the less privileged. Sanimu-Turaki is beginning to alter and positively influence the sociology of voting behaviour of Jigawa State electorates towards massively throwing their support for the governorship candidature of the youthful Alhaji Mustapha Sule-Lamido Jr, as the next Executive Governor of Jigawa State.
PDP December 23, 2022, North-West zonal rally in Gumel District as a confirmation of Saminu-Turaki’s towering political control:
It was at this epoch-making political rally that the youthful and equally brilliant Sule Lamido Jr, the PDP Governorship candidate and his running mate, Alhaji Babandi Ibrahim-Gumel, were presented to the electorates who pledged to support both Sule Lamido Jr. and Alhaji Babandi Ibrahim-Gumel, as the pair that will restore the declining glory of Jigawa State.
The mega rally was essentially issue-based and by coincidence, such concerns of the development administration that had agitated and still agitate the minds of the electorates such as a stable economy, defined the campaign drive. Issues of overhauling the revenue-generating platforms of the state through increased Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), the need for the exploration of untapped solid mineral resources, tackling unemployment, curbing youth restiveness, education of the girl-child as well as the often neglected empowerment of the women were brought to the fore.
Others are the development of the various local market hubs, conversion of the current Dutse International Airport to a cargo terminal to cater for the entire North-West region and revamping of the moribund tourism potentials that Jigawa state is endowed with, among other developmental issues.
Considering that Jigawa is a land-locked state, the novel ideas initiated by the Senator Ibrahim Saminu-Turaki-led administration such as the Maitagari Export Processing Free Zone, which would be driven by the strengthening of the short, medium and long-term economic modules, ably supported by the resuscitation and revitalization of the local markets and sources of raw materials to create paid employments for the youth sub-populations in Jigawa State, will vigorously be pursued if Jigawa State electorates massively and decisively vote in Sule Lamido Jr and Ibrahim-Gumel as Governor and Deputy Governor, respectively.
In all the campaign rallies of the PDP championed by the great grassroots mobilizer, the Turakin Kazaure, such pertinent matters that had been ignored after his exit from his gubernatorial leadership came up. For instance, it is on record that it was in the tenure of Saminu-Turaki that the idea of harnessing the exportable agrarian, solid mineral and human resource potentials of Jigawa State were first mooted and introduced.
Then, it was a very strange economic concept to the people who saw him as a weird Sir Albert Einstein. The people were not ripe for its experimentation and implementation. Again, the concept of e-Governance which linked all the Emirate Councils, MDAs, was the first of its kind in Africa, even as the former President Obasanjo acknowledged the success story of the concept.
At the time of introducing ICT in Jigawa State primary and secondary schools on a pilot scheme basis, Jigawa schools made history nationwide. At least, if and when the duo of Sule Lamido Jr and Ibrahim-Gumel are sworn in as Governor and Deputy Governor respectively, going by the calculations of PDP chieftains, disturbing social and security problems bordering on herders/farmers crisis, effective border patrol, interventionist solutions, legislative bills against crimes and effective collaborations between the Jigawa State government and the Federal Government would be addressed.
Basic matters concerning good governance culture, education, agriculture commerce, the formation of a Jigawa State graduate database, tackling of ecological problems such as flash-flood, drought control mechanisms, waste management control, management of desertification and an aggressive malaria-mosquito control campaign amongst others would also be taken care of.
